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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Add *Support or *Oppose followed by an optional one-sentence explanation, then sign your opinion with ~~~~

Support I requested the move, to fit the other worker pages. Unfortunately, the new page already exists as a redirect to Pink collar. ConDemTalk 00:42, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Support Consistency is a virtue, and the hyphenated use is more common. -- Lisasmall 17:06, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Oppose - This term has been re-purposed and no longer applies to "pink collar" workers which are much lower paid positions. It's now used by female managers to describe being routed in to managerial positions that do not have a track to the board room - HR, Marketing, Customer Service, etc. It allows a company to have plenty of female managers for the counts but none of them are in a position that contributes to the bottom line and its highly unlikely that any of them will ever get a seat at the "big table".

I cut the following because it is pretty incoherent. I imagine that, if better put, it would belong in the article:

Even though Pink-collar refers to women working in their traditional roles in the Western wolrd, this term carries the meaning of fashing and a new kind of lifestyle. Those female workers that are being referred to with this term often dress fashionably and clean. They are mostly in their 20's or 30's.

Some of the problems would be easily fixed (e.g. "wolrd" ==> "world"), but I didn't just copy edit because there are bigger problems:

"Even though Pink-collar refers to women working in their traditional roles in the Western world…": So does this mean to say "Even though in the Western world Pink-collar refers to women working in their traditional roles…"? or does it mean something about Asian women working in traditionally Asian roles in the Western world? or what?

"fashing"?? Perhaps "fashion"? But I wasn't sure.

"…a new kind of lifestyle…": Pretty vague. What does this mean to say?

"workers that are being referred to with this term often dress fashionably and clean": "Clean" comes with the territory. As the article begins "A pink-collar worker works in a relatively clean, safe environment…"

So what is the contrast supposed to be? That Asian pink-collar workers are somehow fashionable in a way that Western ones are not? Or am I missing something? - Jmabel | Talk 05:10, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Not in many parts of the U.S., at least not below the university level. As recently as the 1960s there were running jokes about teachers quitting to become migrant farmworkers and improve their status. And this was a job that many men considered "beneath them". - Jmabel | Talk 19:36, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

Shop assistant should be listed too, one of the most common careers for women in Australia is retail work. Seamstress is another job that should be listed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.211.35.106 (talk) 08:12, 8 June 2012 (UTC)

I just (re-)added Librarian to the list. I have noticed over the years that someone takes it out, and someone puts it in. To me (I am a librarian), it qualifies as a pink-collar job because (a) it is clearly female dominated (~85% in the US), and (b) it is, in part because of its feminized status and our society's prejudices, underpaid relative to the educational requirements and societal contributions. Librarians have been fighting for more recognition and better pay for years, and have tried to re-brand the profession as a "Profession" on par with "manager" etc. This has been successful in some areas (in academic librarianship the pay has improved and often tenure track systems have been added), but it is still woefully lacking in public librarianship, where pay may barely exceed minimum wage. My guess is that the person or people who remove it from this list are doing so in order to differentiate it from "those menial" positions that also populate the list, but wishing something to be so, and the on-the-ground reality are two different things. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.66.37.175 (talk) 18:19, 15 August 2014 (UTC)

You can be asian and still have a pink collar. The clean dress is not in reference to a "clean environment" but to a "clean dress" - almost but not quite litterally because it doesn't have to be a dress. (so don't go running off out of context on me).

To be clean a manner of dress it would be neat, orderly, appropriate looking for the job, professional, and tasteful or flattering to one's appearance. - clean does not go with the territory of a "clean working environment".

The opposite of a dressing cleanly is to dress in a trashy manner, or looking very untasteful or in a non-flattering manner. When speaking of the feminine, looking like a hooker or whore is the opposite of clean.

Asian or caucasion one can still dress cleanly. Just thought I would clarify a little. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.200.137 (talk) 04:08, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

It seems bizzare that none of the categories this page is in include the word "woman", "women" or "feamale". Normally I would just add it, but figured I would see if this was a deliberate choice of editors for some reason. Was it? --Kevlar(talk • contribs) 21:36, 27 March 2009 (UTC)

This article has great problems with neutrality. It seems as though it was compiled by people with a feminist political agenda. I provide the following excerpts that are entirely unworthy of an encyclpaedia:

"Women who choose stay home as a housewife had the most complicated job a person could have." - How? Who says this? Why is this particular role more difficult than any other role in history? One could justifiably say that women experienced difficulty managing a household if one were to provide evidence of this, but to suggest that managing a household is the most difficult of tasks inevitably requires that it be evaluated against all other tasks/chores/jobs, not only at present but throughout all of history. "Black women suffered far more than their white sisters, their realities were bleak and full of despair." - How were they full of despair? What evidence is there of prevaling despair amongst black women? Perhaps there has been a suitable survey or study conducted, but without such a reference this comment cannot remain. There are much better ways of conveying that black women were disenfranchised/marginalised. Why use the term "sisters" as opposed to "counterparts"? This is a fairly transparent attempt at exciting pathos. "Women who are mothers and wives excel with managerial tasks because they plan and prioritize multiple tasks at home. Most women who juggle duties at home are efficient, focused and organized at work." - A gross generalisation. Where is the source for this assertion? How are women who are mothers and wives necessarily more efficient at managing than men who are husbands and father? How does one know that "most" of these women are efficient/focused/organised? In what ways are they demonstrably and objectively efficient/focused/organised? Pancleon (talk) 09:02, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Egh, yes. For an article as well-sourced as this, the tone and the way it's all tied together is just plain awful - even where they're essentially right (as in your second example), it's written in a totally unencyclopedic manner. It would be good if someone could run through and take an axe to the various questionable assertions of fact here; if they're shifted to the talk we can go through them individually. Rebecca (talk) 09:35, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Honestly a good portion of the article reads like a first year college argument essay. Needs a good rewrite. --24.23.38.171 (talk) 02:59, 9 November 2011 (UTC)

Maybe the section titled "Life in the working world" should be broken up into two or more smaller paragraphs, so that it does not persist as a humongous monolithic paragraph. --Keith111 (talk) 00:40, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Aside from the article's lead-in and the "Typical Occupations" section this article doesn't seem to have anything to do with Pink-collar workers. The whole rest of the article is about the history of working women in the United States. Should this be separated into two separate articles, one on "History of working women in the United States" and one on Pink-collar workers? Or should Blue-collar worker be rewritten to include a history of men's labor or the history of blue-collar jobs in the United States? Since this very article defines itself in terms of blue-collar (and white collar) workers it would seem that there should be some level of consistency amongst these articles. The background section editorializes about women working in factories... Are factories pink-collar jobs too? The article that's been written here seems almost completely divorced from the topic. A Pink-collar worker is someone that works in a typically female industry... they don't necessarily need to be a female...--Cybermud (talk) 02:18, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually, adding to the anterior comment, I see that this article was in fact moved from "Pink collar" to "Pink collar-worker" for ostensible parity with the blue and white collar articles even though it is, as noted above, entirely inconsistent with its interpretation of the subject matter and term and seems to be, at present, a coatrack for an article on the history of working women.--Cybermud (talk) 16:04, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure where to put this, I've never edited wikipedia before, but I think "tobacco strippers" should be "tobacco stripers". A stripper is someone who takes their clothes off, I think striper is an archaic word for a salesperson who works only for commission. Google "tobacco striper" to see that it was listed as a profession in 19th century census results. -kmr —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.70.204.148 (talk) 03:39, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

The word 'stripper' has more meanings than just "someone who takes their clothes off". Look up "paint stripper". 2CrudeDudes (talk) 16:58, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

These things are probably all factual. But it feels biased towards showing women as victims. It talks about single women getting their pay cut if they were absent or late. Did married women not get their pay cut? Or men? It seems like the early 20th century was not full of worker's rights all around, not just for women.

Also, it mentions that women earn 77 percent of what men do, regardless of education. What about in equivalent jobs with equivalent experience? And what does that have to do with pink collar workers?

This article makes it seem like women are poor victims of men's suppression and are incapable of doing more satisfying work. And who is to say that the women in pink collar jobs are dissatisfied with their pay or their work? There are certainly women who work in these fields because they like the work and are willing to sacrifice the pay. Karlysalisbury (talk) 19:40, 20 April 2014 (UTC)